Francis James Joseph Raphael Delaney (24 October 1942 – 21 February 2017) was an Irish novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He was the author of The New York Times best-seller Ireland, the non-fiction book Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea and many other works of fiction, non-fiction and collections. He was born in Thomastown, Tipperary, Ireland.
Early years
Delaney was born in Thomastown, Tipperary, Ireland, the son of Edward Delaney and Josephine O’Sullivan, both teachers who were among the founders of the national teachers’ union. His father was also a published writer, who vetted books for the national library.
Broadcasting career
In 1970, Delaney became an anchor and newsreader for the Irish state radio and television network RTÉ. Within a very few years he was invited to join the BBC out of Dublin, as their first Irish-born news reporter. He became, essentially, their Irish war-correspondent, reporting, with his distinctive brand of neutrality, on the intense period of violence known as the Troubles.
After five years of covering the carnage of his divided country, the BBC transferred Delaney to London, where he lived for more than twenty five years, helming their arts broadcasting on both radio and television. He was the voice of The Royal Opera and Royal Ballet, and host and contributor to the long running World Service show on arts and artists, Meridian.
In 1978, Delaney created Bookshelf for BBC Radio 4, a weekly programme which covered books, writers and the business of publishing. Between Bookshelf, the Frank Delaney Show and his own Book Show for Sky, it is estimated that he has interviewed more than 3500 writers, from Somerset Maugham to Christopher Isherwood, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King and Anthony Burgess.
On television, Delaney wrote and presented for Omnibus, the BBC's weekly arts series, and hosted his own talk show, Frank Delaney in the early 1980s, featuring cultural and literary personalities, from Tom Stoppard and Doris Lessing, to members of The Rolling Stones.
Delaney wrote and presented The Celts in 1986, a six-part BBC television series tracing the origins, accomplishments and migration of the race known as the Celts. Challenging their reputation as uncivilized and wild, The Celts presented evidence of a sophisticated and artistic race, and was distributed in more than forty countries. In DVD and streamed services, it remained in active distribution across the world for more than twenty years. A book of the same name followed in 1987.
Delaney created and presented Word of Mouth in 1992. One of the BBC's longest running radio programmes, Word of Mouth was hosted by Michael Rosen after Mr. Delaney’s move to the United States. Today, it continues to review all aspects of the spoken word and the growth of the English language, from slang, acronyms, jargon, poetry and etymology through time and society, just as Mr. Delaney imagined it thirty years ago.
Over the years, Delaney wrote, presented, and created a variety of radio and television documentaries including specials on James Joyce, Robert Graves, Ernest Hemingway in Paris, and the industry that surrounds the work of Shakespeare.
He presented the weekly show, The Book Show on the Sky News satellite channel for many years. And, with his wife, Diane Meier producing, wrote and presented a series of radio documentaries for the BBC on Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and the New York Beat Poets.
Writing career
His first book, James Joyce's Odyssey (1981), a guide to the Dublin of Ulysses, was published to critical acclaim and became a best-seller in the UK and Ireland. [6]
Over the next twenty-seven years, he wrote roughly thirty books of fiction, non-fiction, one novella, and a number of short stories, including The New York Times bestseller, Ireland, tracing his home country, in myth, legend, history and memory.
In addition to his own books, he also edited and compiled many important collections of essays and poetry.
The screenplay for an adaptation of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (2002), was written for and broadcast on ITV in Britain and on Masterpiece Theater in the United States. His articles have been published by newspapers across the States, the UK and Ireland, including The London Times, The Irish Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Op-ed pages of The New York Times.[3] He was a frequent public speaker, and was a contributor and guest on many National Public Radio (NPR) programmes.
At the time of his death, he was working on a biography of Saint Patrick and, with his wife, Diane, a screenplay from his book, Telling the Pictures.